Growth momentum is expected to extend into this quarter and the next on hopes that key customers in the communications sector will roll out new products on schedule after a supply constraint on 28-nanometer chips eased.

Handset chip supplier Qualcomm Inc, which is one of ASE’s top 10 customers, has complained that a short supply of 28-nanometer chips from Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) capped its growth last quarter. TSMC said supply would catch up with customer demand in the next quarter.

“At this point in time, we have very high confidence [that] we will see quarter-on-quarter growth all the way to the year’s end,” Wu said. “In the third quarter and, especially, the fourth quarter announcements, you will see a healthy jump in advanced packaging technology revenue.”

In the second quarter, ASE's consolidated revenue totaled NT$45.87 billion, which represented a rise of 6.4 percent from NT$43.1 billion in the first quarter, but 0.8 percent lower than NT$46.25 billion the year before.

This quarter, shipments in the IC ATM business are expected to grow by between 4 percent and 6 percent over last quarter’s level, with the average selling price staying steady, ASE chief financial officer Joseph Tung (董宏思) said.

ASE’s projection surpassed the expectations of some analysts, including Credit Suisse’s Abrams Randy.

Randy predicted that ASE’s revenue this quarter would grow about 5 percent quarter-on-quarter and be hit by a decline of 4 percent percent next quarter.

In the quarter ending June 30, net profits expanded to NT$3.2 billion, or NT$0.48 per share, compared with NT$2.06 billion, or NT$0.31 a share, in the prior quarter.

That was a 12.13 percent contraction from NT$3.64 billion, or NT$0.54 per share, in the same period last year.

Consolidated gross margin rose to 19.31 percent in the second quarter from 16.68 percent in the first quarter, beating the company’s original forecast, and was compared with 19.38 percent a year ago. Third-quarter margin is expected to experience little change from the second quarter’s, Tung said.

As for gross margin for the IC ATM business, Tung said the third-quarer figure would likely stay at the same level of 22.43 percent seen in the second quarter, up from 19.35 percent in the first quarter.

ASE retained its capital spending at US$800 million for this year, mostly because of its expansion of cost-efficient copper wirebonding machines.

The expansion would help boost the revenue contribution from this popular packaging technology to 60 percent at the end of this year, from 53 percent last quarter, ASE said.